WORCESTER — Organizers of a memorial to six city firefighters who died in the 1999 Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. blaze say they may abandon the $825,000 memorial in two years if they fail to raise enough money to build it.

Meanwhile, the memorial remains stalled while the foundation behind the project continues to spend more money on consulting and legal fees than it takes in.

As of the foundation's most recent tax return, for 2012, the group had $115,152 in net assets and ran a $44,580 deficit for the year, raising $27,549 at its annual comedy show fundraiser while spending $34,801 on consultants, $41,728 on legal services, and $9,002 on other expenses. The foundation also made $13,402 in investment income in 2012.

The foundation ended 2011 with $158,313 in net assets after paying out $113,457 in expenses and taking in $23,264 at the comedy event.

Telephone solicitors for All Pro Productions, the Marlboro-based company that puts on the show, have been calling people in Central Massachusetts this spring in advance of the June 27 show at Mechanics Hall.

The company, in its most recent filing with the state Attorney General's office, says it expects to gross $65,000 at the event. Under its standing contract with the firefighters memorial foundation, the foundation will receive 32 to 35 percent of the proceeds.

John Dumas of All Pro declined to comment.

The current president of the foundation, Denise A. Brotherton, whose husband, Firefighter Paul A. Brotherton, died in the fire, did not return several phone calls seeking comment for this story

Worcester lawyer Michael C. Moschos, who has been with the foundation since its formation in 2000, said Mrs. Brotherton directed him to speak for the group.

Mr. Moschos said fundraising prospects still appear positive, but that the group is approaching individuals in its current fundraising campaign, rather than foundations.

Mr. Moschos maintained that after a story and several columns in the T&G in 2012 about the foundation's finances, organizations indicated they were not interested in contributing to the memorial. But he said he is optimistic the foundation can turn things around.

"I have to be honest. If we're not able to raise the $825,000 ... you close the organization and give the money to other charities," he said. "Right now, we're confident that we can do it. But realistically if after two years we don't come to a fruition, we will give serious consideration" to closing.

At the same time the organization has downsized its dreams for the memorial, which would occupy a bank of Salisbury Pond across from Institute Park behind the city's Fire Department headquarters. Plans still call for adjacent O'Connell field to be renovated with city money and a foot bridge to tie the memorial into Institute Park across the water.

Once envisioned as 70 feet to 80 feet in diameter, the poured concrete oval of the memorial has now shrunk to 50 feet, and six stone columns that were to rise 21 feet are now designed at 10 to 15 feet tall, Mr. Moschos said.

Because the city already has an installation honoring the six firefighters where they died — Lt. Thomas E. Spencer and Firefighters Brotherton, Jeremiah Lucey and Joseph T. McGuirk, Timothy P. Jackson and James F. Lyons (who was posthumously promoted to lieutenant) — the foundation differentiates its project as part of a park and honoring all city firefighters.

The existing memorial is on Franklin Street in front of a new fire station where the former warehouse once stood.

"There is a monument at Franklin Street for six guys. This is a firefighters memorial park," said retired fire Lt. Donald J. Courtney, clerk of the foundation's board.

Mr. Courtney also argued that just as the Worcester memorial is still in the conceptual phase 14 years after the warehouse fire, some similar projects take many years to complete.

He cited the 1972 fire at the former Hotel Vendome in Boston, which killed nine firefighters. A memorial was erected at the Back Bay site 25 years later.

Mr. Courtney and Mr. Moschos also said complicated wetland considerations related to the pond being at the headwaters of the Blackstone River have held up the project and led to substantial legal and consulting fees.

Mr. Moschos said the bulk of consulting and legal fees paid to him and other lawyers have been for the approval and permitting process related to the memorial, acquiring real estate parcels from the city and creating a master plan for the entire complex. Much of the work has involved figuring out how to deal with water problems caused by fill along the banks of the pond, he said.

But not all memorials to heroic effort have taken as much time.

When asked by the Telegram & Gazette about his experience raising money for a monument to a noble cause, Francis R. Carroll, who spearheaded the Korean War Memorial in Worcester, said the effort was time-consuming and demanding.

The Korean War Memorial was finally completed in 2007 on a prominent site on Foster Street near downtown and cost about $1 million; it took about seven years from inception to completion.

Mr. Carroll, founder of the Small Business Service Bureau, said organizers of the Korean memorial never hired paid fundraisers nor kept legal counsel on retainer.

Fundraising, he said, is an all-consuming process if it is to be successful. He said he used his network of contacts among the veterans community across the U.S. and in Korea to help raise the money, and contributed some of his own money, as well as time.

"It takes a very strong commitment by an executive board. and a strong chairman," he said. You have to go 24-7. You can't go on again, off again," said Mr. Carroll, who was chairman of his board during the entire process. "I don't recommend hiring professional fundraisers because that money goes down the drain and there's no accountability."

As for the wetland issues cited by the firefighter memorial organizers, Mr. Carroll, noting that he supports the firefighter project, said those problems should have been dealt with earlier.

Mr. Moschos, the lawyer for the firefighters memorial, said his group didn't have someone of Mr. Carroll's stature.

"He's a wealthy, independent businessman," he said. "This organization doesn't have any staff, and members of the Worcester Firefighters Memorial Foundation have never been paid a dime."

If the foundation is ever dissolved, any remaining assets would likely go to the Greater Worcester Community Foundation to support Institute Park, Mr. Moschos said.

In the meantime, he said, the Fire Department has benefited from the new Emergency Operations and training center and burn building next to the main fire station behind the pond.

Those facilities were built with $2.1 million from actor and comedian Denis Leary's firefighter foundation, though Mr. Moschos said the memorial foundation helped the training complex come to fruition with engineering and planning work it paid for.

Mr. Moschos said if the memorial is never built, the foundation will turn the land over to the city.

"If it's not possible, we will have presented to the city a wonderful development," Mr. Moschos said.